


A Long Shadow

by creative_frequency



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Guardian Uldren, Light Angst, The Dawning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creative_frequency/pseuds/creative_frequency
Summary: Uldren is always alone now, except for his Ghost. But even he can't leave another Guardian to the mercy of the Fallen.
Relationships: Female Guardian & Uldren Sov
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	A Long Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt on Destcember2019, Day 3: A Long Shadow
> 
> [Inspired by the Amnestia-S2 lore in the Dawning.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/amnestia-s2#the-dawning)

_“The Dawning welcomes everyone.” –Eva Levante_

Well into the night, the distant gunfire has fallen silent. The Guardian is settled for some restless slumber. Another day spent in solitude, thankfully without conflict. The days are getting shorter and colder with each cool breeze.

His Ghost hovers by, idly making rounds inside the rusted-out shipping container. In a certain point of his loop, his shell catches the dim starlight through a hole on the roof and glints purple. It’s eerily quiet, for now.

The Ghost stops.

“Hey, are you asleep?” He floats close to his Guardian’s face. Two orbs of washed orange shade shimmer in the darkness.

“Not anymore.”

“Someone is sending a distress call across all channels,” the Ghost says, not even mildly catching the Guardian’s interest, “But the signal is terrible.”

The Guardian’s brow furrows. He doesn’t want anything to do with anyone sending distress calls at this hour. A Guardian or not.

“It’s close by.”

The Ghost snaps the audio feed on and the crate is blasted with crackling sounds of combat. Half of the audio is just static buzz.

“ _Anyone… … … there’s… help… … Can anyone–_ ”

“Turn it off!”

The Guardian is holding his head and the sudden silence pangs in his ears.

“Sorry.”

He looks up. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Are we going to help her?” the Ghost asks politely with no trace of an opinion. It makes the question sound worse than an outright plea.

There isn’t much humanity left inside that container, but the lingering bits of it are gnawing hard at the Guardian’s conscience. He doesn’t know why he was resurrected. That question haunts him every day, but does he have the _right_ to doom someone else to lose that? Never. Be it a curse or a gift, he can be no judge on another Guardian’s life.

He hesitates and looks up at his Ghost.

“Can you pinpoint the location?”

“Yes, but we need to find an entrance. They’re underground.”

“Best get going then.”

Not many Guardians tread so far off the main pathways in these parts. There’s nothing but Fallen and the dark lairs they avidly defend to their last breath.

The Guardian is used to sticking to the shadows, sneaking past the packs of bloodthirsty Dregs that lurk behind every rock and tree. He rarely has to kill them, which is one of the reasons he hasn’t used a firearm in actual combat in a long time.

“Over there.” The Guardian nods towards a trail of broken Fallen bodies that leads into the abandoned sewer maintenance tunnels. “Is the signal still on?” He wants to know if he’s doing this for naught before venturing further.

“ _Shit… Anyone copy? We’re running… fumes…_ ”

“Guardian? Do you copy?” He feels weird saying that.

A relieved exhale crackles with a static buzz. “ _Yes! Lots of… … …trapped… close by?_ ”

The Guardian scrunches his brow, trying to make something comprehensible out of the stuttering words.

“We’re close. Hang in there.”

His Ghost looks at him with pride.

The lights in the sewers are dim but enough to see which of the corridors are framed with Fallen bodies. The Ghost shows light over the Guardian’s shoulder as they venture further. The tunnels go deeper underground than they anticipated. It explains why the signal was so poor. It’s quiet again and only the sounds of dripping water accompany them.

“We might be late,” the Ghost points out.

The Guardian doesn’t want to hear it.

Metallic humming slowly fills the corridors as they go deeper. The Guardian grabs his hand cannon from its holster – a weapon looted from the aftermath of someone else’s battle.

“Put the light out.”

The Ghost comes to hover closer to his Guardian’s shoulder.

The narrow tunnel ends up in a rather large rectangular room with multiple doorways on different levels. The corridors lead out into the darkness like branches from a tree trunk. Some of them have collapsed, recently, by the looks of it. On the other end of the clearing lies a row of huge machines that look like water pumps and their controls. The humming reverberating in the room is coming from the two still working ones. Dust is swirling over the rubble on the floor and the Guardian almost trips on a dead Fallen.

“If you’re another Fallen, you’d best come here fast so we can sort this out!” Someone makes a show of spitting as loudly as possible.

“There she is!” the Ghost yelps.

The Guardian checks around for any eyes glowing in the dark and steps into the room.

“We’re here to help!” he says loud enough to be heard over the pumps but can’t see anyone.

“Oh, thank the Traveler!”

Another Ghost, a vanilla colored one, snaps their light on and glides in the air to the Guardian. “Over here! We got trapped in the… explosions,” she explains and leads the way to the massive water pumps. One of them lies broken on the floor.

“Quickly, before they come back!” The other Guardian sounds relieved.

She is a Titan. An Awoken one, just like him. Her broken helmet is on the floor and her hair is caked with dirt, but there’s a distinguishable bubblegum pink shade underneath.

In that moment the Guardian realizes _he_ isn’t wearing his helmet. The helmet he _always_ keeps on. Were he not in the company of a lady, he would let out the ugly words buzzing in his mind.

“C’mon, I can’t lift this by myself,” she groans and motions with her one free hand towards the pile of rubble that used to be a water pump, on her midsection. Three weapons are scattered around her within arm reach and a respectable amount of shell casings dots the floor like stars, twinkling in the Ghosts’ lights.

“I can’t heal her like that.” The vanilla-colored Ghost makes a sad motion of scanning her Guardian again, unable to do anything to help her.

The Guardian clears out some of the debris, hoping that the noise won’t lure out any more Fallen. The more he looks around, the more corpses he sees. The Titan has been efficient in her last stand.

“Ready? Three, two… one…”

She takes in a deep breath as soon as the pump wreckage rises off her chest and the two Guardians push it aside. Her Ghost pulses with Light. She stays on the floor for a few seconds, evening out her breathing and looking at the Guardian next to her. He pulls his hood on and looks away.

Distant skittering sounds soon begin to creep closer, barely distinguishable through the metallic humming.

“We should go.”

“Good call.”

The Titan grabs her weapons, jumps up and motions for the Guardian to lead the way. He isn’t fond of the idea of a fully armed Guardian behind his back but he doesn’t have much choice. The skittering footsteps are rapidly growing in volume, accompanied by ugly words in Eliksni.

An arc trap grenade falls to their feet.

“Run!” the Titan yells and kicks the grenade to where they came from. It explodes midair, creating a convenient, pulsating field of arc energy. First of the Fallen dregs runs straight into it.

The entrance is not far. The Guardian shoots at the Fallen pouring out of the other tunnels and trying to cut in front of them. He doesn’t think anything but the amount of bullets he has left. His aim is steady and the knife on his belt is swift to meet any Fallen that manage to get too personal.

Starlight is already pouring into the corridor and the Guardians move faster, empowered by the thought of a narrow escape from death.

“Watch out!”

The Titan pushes the Guardian aside, catches something from the air and without wasting a trice throws it back towards the entrance.

The loud boom is deafening. Shrill noise pierces the Guardian’s hearing and prevents him from focusing on how the tunnel entrance collapses with Fallen screams. He stumbles to the forest floor and leans on a tree. He feels nauseous. His Ghost says something, but he can only hear the flat, high-pitched noise.

The Ghost pulses with Light and his hearing snaps back.

The Titan walks up to them, eyes narrowed and hands on her hips. The Guardian regrets not running further the moment they got outside. What was he waiting for? To be thanked?

“I’m Maeve. This is Marshmallow. What’s your name?”

The Guardian pauses. What does he have to risk but another bullet in his head?

“Uldren.”

That’s what the other Guardians keep yelling at him. He has thought about coming up with a new name and his Ghost encouraged that, but he hasn’t yet. He has never needed to introduce himself.

The Titan doesn’t miss a beat. “Good to meet you.” 

Uldren is still half-expecting to be presented to the business-end of her shotgun. He nods clumsily.

“How did you end up here?” she asks. “Not many Guardians in these parts.”

The wicked feeling of anxiety melting into relief has Uldren huff the air out of his lungs. The Titan really seems friendly. There’s none of that crushing grief or twisting rage on her features that he is used to meeting.

Uldren turns to look at his Ghost for answers.

“We heard your distress signal, Miss Maeve,” he says.

Uldren sorely wishes the Ghost will take this sudden kindness at face value and mention nothing of the past hostile approaches of other Guardians.

“Yeah and now I owe you my dumbass life. Well, one of them, at least. I’m still kinda getting used to this.” She laughs and Uldren’s stone face cracks slightly at the morbidity of seeing a smile bloom in the middle of blood splatters.

“Thank you, Uldren.”

His Ghost nudges his shoulder meaningfully.

“You’re welcome. Maeve.”

“We should head back,” Maeve hums and absent-mindedly combs the dirt off her pink hair.

Uldren fiddles with his belt and gives no reply. He needs to find a way to return to his solitude, though he must admit it’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t hold him at gunpoint or yell. He peers at the Titan from under his brows, making sure to memorize the features of the first friendly Guardian he has met.

“Can you transmat my Sparrow, Marsh? Thanks.”

Uldren opens and closes his mouth, trying to form words of goodbye.

Maeve turns to look at him, waiting. “Are you coming?”

“I have a camp nearby.” Uldren doesn’t mean to make it sound like an invitation, but he fails miserably. The faint hope of holding on to her company shines through in the words even though they’re meant as an excuse to skip this trip to the Last City.

Maeve cocks an eyebrow in surprise. “You do? Why here when the City’s just a Sparrow’s throw away? And it’s the Dawning. The City’s filled with parties. Or so I’ve heard.”

Uldren scratches the back of his head and looks away. The celebration of friendship and hope is the last thing he wants to participate in.

“We don’t like spending time in the City,” his Ghost explains in a solemn tone.

“I see.” The Titan leans her chin on her fist and tilts her head, thinking. Her Ghost spins in the air and settles close to her cheek, as if trying to whisper something into her ear.

“I should get back then…” Uldren starts but it’s difficult to cut the moment.

“Mind giving me the coordinates to your camp?” Maeve asks, ignoring his hesitant twitching.

“Already sent!” the Ghost rejoices and bounces happily in the air. Uldren shoots a menacing look at him but can’t stay mad at the font of unending positivity.

“Let’s go then,” Maeve says contently. She motions to Marshmallow and the Sparrow disappears.

“What? What are you doing?”

“I’m staying, obviously.”

“But _why_?”

Maeve scoffs. “No one should be alone on the Dawning. Let’s go. I think I have marshmallows somewhere… I meant edible ones, Marsh. Don’t give me that look.”

Uldren swallows his weak protests and they start walking under the star-littered sky. Two Guardians, strangers to each other but still connected by the Traveler’s grace – or curse, depending on the point of view. Uldren examines Maeve’s lively expressions as she talks and talks and laughs, and he is surprised to feel so… warm. He was expecting something along the lines of pain or regret for saving her. Not the contrary.

“Uldren? Are you still with me?”

A rare smile forms on Uldren’s lips and the long shadow of his previous life feels a little shorter.

“Of course.”


End file.
